London October 2017

1st Years in London 

this year as every year we headed off to London (the Big Smoke!)

We had spent a lot of time writing up a full itinerary for the students to make sure they got their moneys worth and it was definitely action packed!

Arriving in the city and booking ourselves into the Royal National Hotel, we quickly headed off to the British Museum. Here we encouraged the students to look at sequential art through the ages and also launched our new brief about students discovering Myths and Legends of the Big City. This could potentially include something from the Egyptian artefacts or any of the other collected in the place. 

After that we met up and headed off on a tour of the comics outlets and heading down to China Town for a meal.

first port of call was Forbidden Planet just off the Shaftsbury Avenue. After a fire alarm disrupted the visit we lost vital time getting to the other places we wanted to visit. 

This included Orbital Comics

And GOSH Comics where we arrived just as they were closing up, so making this the second year on the trot we got turfed out!

The meal in china town was good, then we headed off to The Champion Pub to meet up with ex student Rob Cureton from Orful Comics. Rob has worked on many animation productions and that is what his full time job is and he does comics in the evening and sells them at conventions up and down the UK

Day 2 Cartoon and Comic Museum

Going to the Cartoon and Comic Museum is one of the high lights of the visit to London. This year Steve Marchant, the man now in charge of the Museums lottery collection was a very busy man. But he gave up his time to have a talk to the students about the new comics the museum had brought and potential areas in which the collection was looking to buy.

After this we had a drawing challenge for the students in Covent Garden... Where was the garden?

We then headed up the road to Trafalgar Square and gave the Students a challenge to enter the National Gallery, and find a selection of images.

Day 3 MCM London Expo

                

 

Heading off early to London docklands this was going be a challenge but fun day. Once we got into the event it was murder to find anyone again till we met up at the location 

       

                 

what was good, a couple of our members of staff are also independent artist and they had stands at the event selling their work. Awkwardbex - Becci Such and Talburt Comics is our own Claire Smith. 

It all ended up with a mad dash for the train and a long ride home, which seems to be a reoccurring thing now on these trips!

May London MCM Comic Con

Staffs Uni 

Cartoon & Comic Arts 

Students take 

London MCM By Storm

This is a bit later than planned due to the work load associated with the end of the semester and setting up the degree Show and doing all the marking etc, I wont carry on, I can see you are already close to tears.

This year saw Cartoon and Comic Arts setting up Level 5 students (2nd Years) to go to London MCM Comic Con. They were split into 4 groups (Publishing houses) and got together to sell purely original comics. It turned into a huge success for the students.

The Comic Village was very large this time, the students were split into their groups and dispersed among other independent artist and publishers.

The Super Comic League consisted of Emily Moore, Chizi Woherm, Jay Wightman and Megan Lee. They drew comics based on Fantasy creatures.

Hex Comics with Christina, Ross, Brad, Simon and Zu. Their comics had a mystical element to them.

Melonchomics had Vicky, Sonny, Izzy, Rob, Sam and Reuben and did a post Apocalyptic tales. 

Finally Techne Comics based mainly in Fantasy/Mythology stories featured Maisy, Tara, Nadia, Nick, Kate and Natasha, and they had a special guest star Pheonix a 1st year student turn up to help out .

MCM Success

2nd Years take MCM by storm!

It can only be consider a success with 22 students from the cartoon and comic arts course at Staffordshire university all descending on to the capital city to take part in the  London MCM Expo event at London Docklands, 

The cohort was split into 4 groups of between 5 & 6 students and they as a group had to become a publishing house and go about, coming up with a an ethos for the team, produce individual comics, go about advertising MCM and their work and then proceed to sell them.

Gareth and Adrian enjoying a drink with 3rd Year student Becci (Awkward Bex) and Liam 

 Gareth Catches up with students at Greenwich, discussing plans for tomorrows event 

 A couple of 1st years students tagged along with the intentions of enjoying the event and going in as Cosplay Characrers

HEX Comics

Picture above is with all the team from Left to right Christina, Zu, Simon, Brad and Ross

Hex on their way to London, looking quite happy

First incident at table Hex, Simon spills his drink on the table 

A well drilled emergency display kicks in as they clean up, with special help from ZU

Thats better Photoshoot with Zu & Simon

Simon and Brad

A new method of selling comics Christina and Ross.

Techne Comics

Nadia and Tara at the stall selling their comics

Nick and Kate set up position to do commissions  

Maisy shows a first year Phoenix how to sell work at MCM 

Natasha selling her comics

The Super Comic League

Jay and Megan take control behind their table

Chizi and Emily show their technique to draw people over to their stall

Jay and Megan try a different attack to draw people over to their table.

Melanchomics

Reuben and Sam adopt some strange methods  

Vicky and Sonny 

Rob and Izzy 

From Left to right, Chelsea and Rhonna don their Cosplay, Ross... is just Ross, The Arthur Daley of the Comic Village Zu  

Our very own Becci AwkwardBex at the convention 

Alumni 

Rob Cureton the master of Orful Comics. Ex Animation student at Staffs Uni

One of the first students to graduate from Cartoon & Comic Arts Esme Baran, still going strong and now selling Undine Figurines.

Hidden in all that is Millie (Snail lover) Harrop.

Claire Smith - also did a lecture to 2nd years students about the do's and don'ts of selling at conventions. We are hoping to get her back next year (Sept 2015) as well

 
Phillipa Rice Ex Animation student and brilliant comic book artist and illustrator. 

Lex Harford hiding behind her big box.